Silas Trip

Silas Trip (1828-18 July 1863) was a Private in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War.

Biography
Silas Trip was born into slavery in Tennessee in 1828, and he ran away from his plantation when he was just twelve years old, never looking back. Trip was a negative and aggressive person due to the torture that he had endured as a slave, but he was also bitter towards fellow African-Americans, especially the educated freedman Thomas Searles. In November 1862, he joined the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, an all-black regiment of the US Army formed during the American Civil War. Trip was flogged in the winter of 1862 for attempting to search for some shoes outside of the Readville Camp in Massachusetts, as the officers believed that he was a deserter. Trip would fight in South Carolina alongside the rest of the regiment, and he took up the American flag after the flagbearer was killed during the assault on Fort Wagner in July 1863. Trip rallied the Massachusetts troops to continue the charge, but he was shot several times, dying while holding the flag up.